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🔔 The Opening Bell
Good morning.
OpenAI officially released GPT-5 yesterday to all users (paid and free) after a press briefing—but the real star of the show was a hilariously bad chart in OpenAI’s presentation. Mistakes aside, the company is now in talks with investors for a massive new valuation.
Firefly Aerospace IPO’d yesterday and initially took off like the rockets it makes—but it did not end the same way Figma’s IPO did.
And in a surprise geopolitical twist, oil prices are dipping on news of a potential meeting between President Trump and President Putin.
Former Zillow exec targets $1.3T market
The wealthiest companies tend to target the biggest markets. For example, NVIDIA skyrocketed nearly 200% higher in the last year with the $214B AI market’s tailwind.
That’s why investors are so excited about Pacaso.
Created by a former Zillow exec, Pacaso brings co-ownership to a $1.3 trillion real estate market. And by handing keys to 2,000+ happy homeowners, they’ve made $110M+ in gross profit to date. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.
No wonder the same VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay also invested in Pacaso. And for just $2.90/share, you can join them as an early-stage Pacaso investor today.
Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.
📰 Market Headlines
Major indexes split on Thursday as President Trump's new tariffs landed.
The Dow dropped 0.5%, the S&P 500 barely budged, and the Nasdaq managed a 0.4% gain and notched a fresh record.
The new tariffs on dozens of countries are now in effect, pushing the average US import duty to its highest in a century.
Eight major partners secured framework deals, reducing rates to 15%, while Britain won a 10% rate. Brazil, India, and Switzerland face the steepest penalties.
President Trump nominated Stephen Miran, his top economic adviser, to a short-term post as Federal Reserve governor through January 2026.
Continuing jobless claims jumped to 1.97 million in the week ended July 26, the highest since November 2021.
Oil prices dipped after the Kremlin announced a meeting between President Trump and President Putin, raising hopes for a Ukraine ceasefire. At this point, it’s unclear whether or not President Zelenskyy will be invited. Brent fell 0.45% to $66.59 per barrel.
Firefly Aerospace debuted at $70 yesterday, which is 55% higher than its IPO price of $45. However, the initial hype quickly cooled, and the stock dropped to $56 within three hours. Traders on social media were overall disappointed, as they were hoping to see the stock grow by multiples like Figma did last week.
OpenAI released GPT-5, its most powerful model yet—but the difference isn’t nearly as apparent as the shift from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4 was in 2023. Still, Elon Musk just tweeted that OpenAI will eat Microsoft alive. Regardless, GPT-5 does seem to be better than its predecessor at most things (if only marginally in some cases): a company tested the model on tons of finance and investing tasks, and it crushed them.
Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is still looking to do a secondary share sale that would value his company at $500 billion.
😱 Fear and Greed Index
🧠 The Missing (Market) Links
Here’s a tweet breaking down how the US and India’s relationship collapsed over the past few months.
The US is going to put a tariff on gold bar imports.
Are men or women better at saving? Check the data.
Looking to earn more, but don’t have a bachelor’s degree? No problem—here are five jobs that pay well without a bachelor’s (up to $150,000/year).
Fed Governor Lisa Cook said businesses now face an "uncertainty tax," with leaders spending 20–45% of their time on investment and pricing decisions.
Spain's Deoleo, the world’s largest olive oil producer, reported a 50% raw-price plunge thanks to a bumper harvest, boosting market confidence.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expects tariff revenues to hit $50 billion monthly, with new levies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
An AI scheduling assistant that lives up to the hype.
Skej is an AI scheduling assistant that works just like a human. You can CC Skej on any email, and watch it book all your meetings. Skej handles scheduling, rescheduling, and event reminders. Imagine life with a 24/7 assistant who responds so naturally, you’ll forget it’s AI.
📊 Infographic of the Day
BREAKING: Gold prices officially surge above $3,500/oz and enter record high territory.
This puts gold prices up +43% over the last 12 months, more than DOUBLING the S&P 500's return.
— #The Kobeissi Letter (#@KobeissiLetter)
10:07 PM • Aug 7, 2025
🚚 Market movers
Peloton announced layoffs as part of a restructuring plan aimed at saving $100 million by FY26. Despite a surprise 5-cent profit against an expected 5-cent loss, shares dipped over 1%.
Paramount and Skydance completed an $8.4 billion merger, forming Paramount Skydance Corp. Shares will trade under PSKY on Nasdaq.
Intel shares dropped 3% after President Trump demanded CEO Lip-Bu Tan's resignation over alleged conflicts of interest, following a 5% premarket slide.
Crocs stock plunged 27% due to tariff concerns impacting future earnings, closing at $76.50, its lowest level since 2022.
🪙 Crypto
XRP and the SEC officially put their feud to rest.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs returned to net inflows with $91.5 million after a four-day outflow streak. BlackRock's IBIT led with $42 million.
New York regulators fined Paxos $48.5 million for compliance failures related to its Binance USD partnership.
Two Seas Capital, Core Scientific's third-largest shareholder, rejected the miner's acquisition by AI cloud provider CoreWeave.
🤖 AI/Future/Tech News
South Korea is launching its own “national AI model” to compete with the US and China.
Fujitsu embarked on developing a 10,000-plus qubit quantum computer, expected by 2030.
Framework Ventures led a $9 million seed round for Perle, a Web3-powered AI project.
Security researchers exposed a vulnerability in OpenAI's Connectors, where a “poisoned document” could leak sensitive data via ChatGPT.
🌍 International Markets
🇬🇧 The Bank of England cut interest rates to 4%, focusing on inflation and employment against ongoing US tariffs.
🇦🇪 Emirates Global Aluminium teed up a multibillion-dollar IPO, potentially marking one of the largest share sales in the Middle East.
🇲🇽 Mexico's central bank cut its benchmark rate by 25 basis points, downshifting from previous half-point reductions.
🇮🇳 India's energy importers face challenges due to new US tariffs, with Russian oil imports surging to 50 million barrels monthly since mid-2022.
🇧🇴 In Bolivia, cryptocurrencies are gaining traction as inflation hits 25%, and dollar shortages persist.
🎤️ What you said last time
📊 Earnings
Block reported Q1 revenue of $5.77 billion, falling short of the estimated $6.19 billion, but shares still climbed 1% before market close.
Celsius Holdings sizzled with Q2 earnings of $739.3 million, representing an 84% year-over-year increase; shares skyrocketed over 17%.
ConocoPhillips posted Q1 earnings of $2.8 billion, up from $2.6 billion in the previous year; shares slid 0.6%.
Eli Lilly beat Q1 expectations but failed to convince investors; shares fell over 14%.
Sony Group reported a 22.9% rise in operating profit to 1.2 trillion yen for the first nine months; shares climbed 4.5%.
The Trade Desk announced Q2 revenue of $616 million, exceeding the forecast, but earnings per share fell short; shares slipped 1.4%.
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📺 What to watch today
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Cheers,
Brandon with Stefan & Wyatt
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